Belong: Find Your People, Create Community, and Live a More Connected Life

Questions to ask yourself one by one AFTER you’ve plotted your life path: 1. Whom did you look up to? 2. Whom did you depend on? 3. Who kept you safe emotionally or physically? Who didn’t? 4. Who worried about you when you were feeling stressed? 5. Whom did you take for granted?

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Another study found that having weak social ties is as harmful to our health as being an alcoholic and twice as harmful as obesity. Sit with that for a second: Having poor social connections is as bad as being an alcoholic and twice as bad as being obese.

It’s a feeling of home, of “I can exhale here and be fully myself with no judgment or insecurity.” Belonging is about shared values and responsibility, and the desire to participate in making your community better. It’s about taking pride, showing up, and offering your unique gifts to others. You can’t belong if you only take.

Thinking back, I realized that for the past decade, I had placed making friends in the “if I have time” category. Work always came first and canceling on friends became normal. I spent time with people who were fine but not inspiring, just because it was easier. I would often delay or avoid the opportunity for a deeper connection with someone in re

where you experience a sense of belonging.

Communities are built, person by person, through thoughtful design and authentic, energetic connection points.

Let’s Talk About Comparison, Perfectionism, and Judgment

Across all four levels of my updated hierarchy of needs is one unifying ingredient: community. Without a community supporting you at each level, it’s nearly impossible to move up the hierarchy. As psychologist Noam Shpancer wrote, “Human beings, fundamentally, are distinctly, spectacularly social. Lonely and isolated, we cannot survive, let alone t